Hays CISD announced May 1 that Lehman High School’s interim band director, Jose Valenzuela, has been been hired as head band director.

“He’s has only been on our campus for a semester, but you can already see the impact he is having,” Lehman Principal Denisha Presley said in a release. ”Just after our UIL competition this year, judges were complimenting him and our students for the sound.”

Valenzuela began his time with Hays CISD at Simon Middle School in August before moving to Lehman High in January after Joey Lucita was hired as band director for the not-yet-open Johnson High School. Previously, he was the band director for Alexander High School in Laredo after two decades at Donna High School in Donna, Texas.

He holds a bachelor’s in music from Sam Houston State University and won the 2013 Krispy Creme Southwest Sector Teacher of the Year. In the 2016-17 school year, Valenzuela was a quarter finalist for the Grammy Outstanding Music Educator of the Year.

Editor's note: the spelling of Jose Valenzuela's name has been corrected.